


[Abandoned WIP] Two for One and All for Four

by istia



Series: Abandoned WIP [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Age Regression/De-Aging, Gen, POV Elizabeth Weir, Young John Sheppard, Young Rodney McKay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 14:20:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1902258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/istia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>De-aged John and Rodney and their (truncated) adventures on Atlantis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[Abandoned WIP] Two for One and All for Four

"Dr. Weir, we've run into a bit of a situation."

She clicked her earpiece automatically, without lifting her eyes or most of her attention from the final draft of a trade agreement with the inhabitants of P3X-Y52. "What kind of situation, Major?"

"Marines patrolling the South Pier found a couple of kids. I ordered them to take them directly to the med lab."

She looked up. "Athosian children? On their own? How did they get into the city?"

"I don't know, ma'am. I'm on my way to meet them now. By the way, I haven't been able to raise Colonel Sheppard."

"All right, Major. I'll meet you at the med lab." She clicked her earpiece again as she left her office and headed down the corridor to the transporter. "Colonel Sheppard, do you read, please." She got into the transporter and touched the map closest to the Infirmary. "Colonel Sheppard, please respond."

As she entered the med lab, she could hear high voices intermingled with Lorne's deeper, soothing tones and Beckett's distinctive accent.

"Now, then, lads, that's enough of that."

"Carson?" She went behind the curtain pulled around an examination area. Lorne nodded to her and stepped aside to give her room. Beckett looked up from where he was bent over two small figures sitting side-by-side on a bed.

"My goodness, they're very young. Are you sure they were wandering around alone?"

She looked at Lorne, who nodded at two soldiers hovering in the corner. "Yes, ma'am. Messner and Coopman couldn't see a sign of anyone else. Correct, guys?"

"Yes, sir." One spoke and the other nodded. Their eyes kept sliding nervously to the two children.

Elizabeth followed suit and studied them. Two boys, dressed in--

"Are those miniature uniforms?"

"They do appear to be." Lorne sounded as uneasy as the soldiers looked.

"You should stop that now! I don't want you to do that anymore!" The high voice sounded fretful and cross at the same time. Immense blue eyes in a flushed, round face looked balefully up at Beckett as the child tried to tug down his gray T-shirt and dislodge Beckett's stethoscope from his chest.

"Gently, little one, I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to make sure your heart is beating properly."

"Why wouldn't it be? I don't want you touching me anymore! Tell him!" He accompanied the last shrill cry with a jab of his elbow into the other boy's ribs.

"Ow! Don't do that!" The other boy jabbed him back. "You're just being a crybaby!"

The first one turned an outraged face to him, then slapped at him with both hands. Immediate retaliation from the second child resulted in a flurry of escalating slaps on both sides accompanied with high-pitched yelps.

"I am not! I am not a crybaby! You're just too dumb to know anything!"

"You are so! And I do so know!"

"Boys, now--"

The second boy turned to angle a kick at the first one's leg, but before the small booted foot could connect, Beckett lifted the child away.

"All right, that's quite enough of that nonsense. You, laddie, will sit here." He set the second boy down on an exam table behind him.

The first boy stuck out his tongue and the second one pulled a grotesque face back at him, complete with thumbs stuck in his ears and fingers waggling. Beckett quirked an eyebrow at Elizabeth as he turned back around. "As you can see, Dr. Weir, we have a pair of little angels on our hands." He shook his head, but his voice was amused.

She couldn't help smiling because they both did actually have an angelic look to them despite the scowls and combativeness. Two remarkably pretty little boys, she thought as she studied them. One with soft brown curls, the other with a mop of dark hair that--

She blinked and stared between them: big blue eyes with long sweeping lashes and a wide mouth beneath fine, blondish-brown hair; pointy features in a thin face under spiky dark hair. Both wearing tiny Atlantis Expedition uniforms, one jacket with blue panels, the other with black, one with a tiny red-and-white maple leaf and the other with a US flag on the sleeve....

"Oh, my god."

"Yes, ma'am." Lorne sighed, his eyes moving back and forth between one small face and the other.

"Aye, we do seem to have run into a wee problem." Beckett blinked at what he'd said, and gave a rueful smile. "So to speak."

He picked up a syringe and turned to the first boy--to a child who looked very like Rodney McKay must have done when he was about five.

"No!" The voice managed to hit the upper echelons of the shrill meter; beside her, Lorne winced. "No, no, no! I don't want that sticking in me!"

"I just need to take a little blood--" Beckett began soothingly, but was immediately drowned out by a flurry of squealing protest and flailing legs and arms.

Lorne immediately stepped forward, reaching for the child from behind. "Let me give you a hand there, Doc."

"Leave him alone! Leave him alone!"

The minute version of Colonel John Sheppard launched himself with a kamikaze cry from the exam table behind Beckett and managed to pummel Beckett's back with his fists as he sailed to the floor. Elizabeth craned to see over the table as the boy landed gracefully on his feet and rose up to kick Beckett squarely in the back of the knee in one smooth movement. He followed the first kick with another to Beckett's shin as the doctor was lurching around. Gaelic cursing mingled with Rodney's yells and John's high-pitched demands, creating a wall of sound Phil Spector would flail at.

Lorne rounded the table swiftly and grabbed John around the waist, pulling him up and away. "Easy, easy," he murmured, and got a small fist sloppily propelled into his cheek in reply. He pulled John against his chest, trapping his arms. "Come on, easy now, pal, no one's going to hurt you."

Beckett had put down the syringe and was attempting to appease Rodney's angry fears. Both of the children were red-faced and looked frightened and weary. Elizabeth stepped to Lorne's side and placed a hand on John's heaving back.

"John. John, shh, now, it's all right." Having attracted the gaze of his wild eyes, she seized the moment. "Your name is John, yes?" She smiled and waited, rubbing gently, until he nodded. She smiled at him with all the warmth she could muster. "Major Lorne is quite right, nobody wants to hurt either of you. Why don't you sit back down with Rodney."

She nodded to Lorne, who set the boy down carefully on the bed beside Rodney, who immediately reached over and grabbed John's hand. Rodney gave a big sniff and swiped his free hand across his runny nose before scowling up at them defiantly.

"You're all mean and nasty," he informed them with a sweep of his eyes that took in all five of them.

The two soldiers shifted uneasily.

"I'm very sorry we made you feel that way." She stepped closer to the boys without crowding them and smiled down at the screwed-up, tear-streaked face gazing up at her with baleful suspicion. "Your name is Rodney, isn't it, honey?"

"Maybe." It was said with an infantile version of an intimidating look that would be perfected in, oh, about thirty years. At the moment, it was a good effort, but lacked a degree of impact, especially on such an unexpectedly cherubic face.

Elizabeth suppressed a smile.

John poked him, though lightly. Rodney turned the glare on him, but didn't let go his clutch on John's hand. Rodney turned back to look up at her with a sigh. "Yes, my name's Rodney." He sniffed again. "I don't like any of you. You're all mean."

"They're tired and overwrought, Elizabeth. They need rest, and a little peace and quiet. We can continue the examinations later."

"Of course, but we really need to find out what happened, Carson."

"There was a light," Rodney said. "And then we fell down and John cried, but I didn't even though I hurt my knee." He straightened his right leg with his eyes screwed up and touched fretfully at his leg above his knee, his expressive face pulling into a grimace.

"Rodney!" John sounded almost as distraught as Rodney.

"Well, you did cry! And I didn't." The last was a sob.

"You're crying _now_."

Beckett gently pressed them both back to lie down. "All right, lads, you'll feel better after you've had a little nap. Would you like to have your own bed, John?"

"No!" Rodney spoke with shrill vehemence that made all the adults wince again.

John shrugged and closed his eyes with a sigh, turning onto his side and curling into a ball next to Rodney, who was on his back; their small fingers still twined together. Beckett unlaced Rodney's shoes and Elizabeth leaned in and did the same to John's military-issue boots, pulling each one off and handing them in turn to Lorne, who turned the tiny things in his hands, shaking his head as he examined them. Beckett settled a blanket over the boys, who were already drifting off, and inclined his head toward the other side of the room. As Elizabeth moved away, she heard him lifting the side of the bed and locking it into position.

They retreated to the far end of the exam room. Beckett left a gap in the curtains when he followed them out so they could see the sleeping children.

"What were they doing when you found them?" Elizabeth kept her voice low as she spoke to the two soldiers.

The men exchanged a glance, then the corporal with an Israeli flag patch squared his shoulders and said, "We heard them before we saw them, ma'am. These high little voices, sounded like they were arguing, so we followed the sound and rounded a corner and they were in the corridor. And then the, the, the Col-- Uh, the--" He stumbled to a stop and looked pained.

"The taller one?" Lorne suggested.

Both soldiers nodded, looking relieved. "Yes, sir, the taller one." He spoke the words firmly, as though focusing on absolutely nothing but the children's relative size difference. "He stepped in front of the smaller one and held up his fists."

A smile tugged at the corners of the other soldier's mouth, and Lorne was obviously biting the inside of his own. Beckett didn't try to hide his smile and neither did Elizabeth, feeling a certain amount of tension ease from her stiff shoulders as she let herself picture the moment.

"Oh, yes," she murmured, glancing at the bed again, "that's our John."

"Yes, ma'am. We told them we weren't going to hurt them, asked where their parents were, how they got there. The, uh, the smaller one, uh--"

"Rodney," she said, gently.

"Yes, ma'am, he pushed the taller one aside, and that led to a shoving match. Rodney insisted they had to trust somebody because he was hungry and tired of walking and being lost and the taller one said he wasn't lost, just taking the long way around, and Rodney said he was so lost he wouldn't be able to find the way to the bathroom in time and he was dumb, too."

He paused for breath and the private with an American flag patch took up the story. "So the taller one shoved him again and Rodney kicked him and Messner and I figured we'd better break it up before they bloodied each other's noses or something."

Messner broke in, "Soon as we took another step closer to them, the, the, uh, taller one tried to shove Rodney behind him again, but Rodney pinched his arm and, uh, then we grabbed them while they were distracted. Ma'am."

Coopman added, "We told them real quick we weren't going to hurt them, just take them somewhere nice and safe where we could get them food and stuff. Rodney said okay, he wanted to do that, and kind of, well--"

" _Glared_ at the, the taller one," Messner supplied. "And the taller one turned red and clenched his fists, but Coop was holding Rodney and walked away, so then the, um, taller one sighed and let me carry him, too. I think he was pretty worn out. And we called Major Lorne and he met us here."

Both of them shot patently grateful looks to their CO.

"Did they say anything else while you were walking?" Lorne asked.

"No, sir. They just really talked to each other--"

"At each other," Coopman interposed.

"Right, yeah, Rodney calling the taller one things like 'dinky head' and the taller one saying Rodney wasn't as smart as he thought he was and he'd be sorry when they ended up in trouble." Messner grimaced. "They sounded just like my sister's twins. When Coop suggested to Rodney that maybe he should knock it off with the insults, the taller one kicked his feet out toward Coop--miles off hitting Coop, but he gave it a good try, this big lurch using my chest as leverage so I almost dropped him--and told Coop he shouldn't tell Rodney what to do, it wasn't any of his business."

"Then Rodney got kind of loud again in agreement, so we hurried up."

They nodded their heads in emphatic unison.

"Okay, guys, that should do for now." Lorne's lips were twitching as he looked at Elizabeth for confirmation. She nodded and he turned back to the soldiers. "I'll get your reports from you later. Be ready to escort a team of scientists to the area where you found the boys; you're relieved of other duties for the day."

"Sir. Ma'am." They nodded to Lorne, Elizabeth, and Beckett in turn and left together, walking with long, eager strides to the door.

"Well." Elizabeth sighed as the seriousness of the situation swarmed back into ascendancy. "I'll get Dr. Zelenka to muster a team and investigate that part of the city. A light, Rodney said."

"I suppose they must have touched something they shouldn't." Beckett looked toward the bed. "I'll do a passive exam while they're asleep, get general readings on them."

"All right, keep me informed."

"Aye, I will." Beckett returned to the bed, rubber-soled shoes whisper-quiet on the floor.

Elizabeth looked at Lorne. "Well, Major, until further notice, you'll assume military command of the city." It hurt to say the words, and she tried to concentrate on the immediate situation, on dealing with it and getting it fixed as soon as possible. She forced a smile. "I'm confident everything will run smoothly under your care."

"Ma'am." Lorne was frowning and looked much less certain, but he made a valiant effort to look assured and left with a nod and a final glance toward the sleeping boys.

She shot a final look at Beckett bent over the bed, looking at the readout from a scanner as he ran it slowly over John's small, curled-up body, then squared her shoulders and left.

:::::::

Beckett called Elizabeth back to the med lab three hours later.

"They woke up a short time ago. They've been to the bathroom and they've had an ice cream cup each to tide them over, and they're fairly amenable to answering questions. Unfortunately," he added, to her hopeful look, "they appear to remember nothing of their former lives and have no idea what happened. All I can get from them is the memory of a beam of light hitting them, of falling down and being frightened--and, in Rodney's case, banging his knee, though there's nothing to see but a tiny reddened spot--then a lot of time spent trying to find their way out of the deserted part of the city."

Rodney was sitting up against the pillows licking a spoon carefully clean on all sides. John's spoon and empty cup were abandoned on the bedside table and he was investigating the moveable side railing of the bed, his agile fingers releasing the lock and shifting the bars up and down. They were obviously a strain for him to lift, but he kept persevering, letting them fall down with a satisfying clang, then struggling to pull them back up and locking only so he could release the catch and let them fall again.

"John's a mite restless," Beckett said unnecessarily, and she couldn't help laughing a little.

Both boys' attention focused on her at the sound, and she smiled at them. Rodney scowled and John, caught with the bars halfway lifted, grunted and let them clash back down before settling his own wary gaze on her.

She stepped to the side of the bed, feeling awkward. She'd never had much interaction with children, in either her personal life--an only child with no cousins, nieces, or nephews--or her professional one. She had a feeling they could sense her unease and were reflecting it back at her.

"We didn't meet properly before. I'm Dr. Weir."

Rodney's scowl became ferocious. "We don't want any more doctors doing things to us."

"Oh, no, honey, I'm not that kind of doctor, I promise. It's just a title I have."

"Oh." He looked uncertainly at John, who met his eyes for a long moment, then turned to look at her, his head tilted to one side.

"Are you going to ask us more questions?" John was less outwardly hostile, but she'd known his adult counterpart long enough to read the resistance hidden behind his straight gaze.

"Well, I would very much like to know if you remember me, or--"

They were both shaking their heads.

"Do you remember this place? Anything?"

"Nuh-uh." Rodney put his polished-clean spoon down next to John's with a regretful look.

"Well, can you tell me about your parents? Do you remember--"

Rodney's lower lip quivered and John looked down, twisting the blanket between his fingers. "No. We don't have any." He slanted a look at Rodney, who still looked quivery, but who nodded his head.

"We just have us." Rodney spoke firmly, almost defiantly. "We woke up and we didn't know where we were and there wasn't anybody around and we just, we just got hungry and it, it, it was going to get dark--"

"So we walked," John broke in as Rodney's voice wobbled. "We walked a long time, and we weren't scared, we just kept looking."

"And you were very brave, both of you." Beckett rested a hand on Rodney's shoulder and smiled at John. "You did exactly the right thing."

"You certainly did, and you're safe now." She added her own warm smile and watched as both of them lost a little of the tension in their small frames.

"Dr. Weir?"

A movement at the door drew their attention as Teyla and Ronon entered. With startling suddenness, Rodney screeched, "Teyla!" and scrambled down the side of the high bed to the floor. Beckett started to reach for him, but was distracted when John bounced up to his feet, yelled, "Ronon!" and launched himself off the end of the bed in a heart-stopping, flying leap.

Teyla came to a halt as Rodney barreled into her legs and hugged her around the knees. "Teyla!" he screamed again. She stared down at the rumpled brown head, then looked up with a bewildered expression that turned to horror as she saw John in mid-air. Beckett made a stumbling grab for John that missed and Elizabeth flung an arm out uselessly, instinct only as she was too far away to have any hope of snagging him.

Ronon took a long step forward and caught John in flight. John's arms went tight around his neck and John's face mashed against his throat. Ronon stood still, holding the boy securely, and looked as bemused as Teyla did. Teyla breathed a sigh of relief and bent over to stroke Rodney's head.

"And who is this? I don't think that I know these children, though they seem to know us."

"Aye, they do. That's quite fascinating." Beckett took a deep breath and looked as though he were making a conscious effort to control his speeding heart.

"We've had a little excitement here today." Elizabeth stepped forward. "That's Rodney, Teyla."

Teyla's eyes widened as she stared at her, then looked sharply down at the child. Ronon's head snapped around, then he looked back at the dark head of the boy he was holding.

"And Ronon has John." She couldn't keep the wry note out of her voice at Ronon's appalled expression, even as his arms tightened protectively.

"I...see."

"Teyla, Teyla!" Rodney scrabbled at her skirt and she crouched down, studying his face.

"I see you, child. Everything is well."

He threw his arms around her neck as John had done with Ronon, and she put her arms snugly around him and lifted him as she stood. Rodney's legs cinched around her waist. She stroked his hair as she held him securely with her other arm.

"This is certainly an unexpected...pleasure to come home to."

"We were lost and there was nobody around and we walked and walked and walked and it was really really big and empty and there were noises." Rodney's voice started out barely audible, but lifted as he pulled back until he was talking earnestly into her face.

One small hand patted her cheek with an oddly gentle motion. He blinked big eyes that were suddenly brimming.

"I wasn't lost," John said in muffled protest, but didn't lift his face away from Ronon's neck. Ronon's splayed hand covered John's entire back.

"Well, I am very glad you are both safe now." Teyla smiled at Rodney and pulled a handkerchief from her pocket. She patted away the damp on his cheeks and got a sniffly smile in return.

"Yeah, safe now," Ronon agreed. He still looked freaked out, but showed no inclination to force John to let go of him, or do anything else until John was ready.

"Why don't we adjourn to my office. I believe the boys' lunch has arrived and I'm sure they must be hungry."

Beckett led them to his office, where they found a tray sitting on the desk. Failing to peel away Rodney's limpet clutch on her, Teyla sat down and settled him on her lap. Ronon did the same in the chair beside hers, though John showed less interest in the food and had to be coaxed to let go his death grip on Ronon's shirt and let himself be turned around to face the rest of them. His face was flushed and he sniffed, then turned to look up at Teyla, a shy smile blossoming on his face as his eyes roamed over her features with hungry intensity.

She smiled and reached to smooth a hand over the tufts of his unruly hair. His smile was replete with warmth, and he whispered, as though it were a charm, "Teyla."

"It is good to see you well, John."

Rodney pulled his eyes from the tray of food and looked over at Ronon with a singularly sweet smile of his own. He lifted a hand and waved as though he were greeting Ronon from the end of a corridor; unexpected dimples scored his round cheeks when Ronon lifted a hand from John and responded with his own small flap.

"Feeling better?" Ronon asked Rodney gruffly.

Rodney nodded, but said, " _Hungry_." He looked pointedly back at the tray, then up at Beckett and Elizabeth. "'cause we were walking forever and there was nothing to eat and it was hours and hours and _hours_."

He produced a tragic look, mouth turned down eloquently, which Ronon matched, looking scandalized.

"Eat," he ordered and leaned forward to lift the plate of sandwiches, offering them to Rodney, who beamed and grabbed at them with both hands, only Teyla's arms around his middle keeping him from toppling off her knee.

Beckett provided a plate, which Teyla freed a hand to hold, and Elizabeth lifted the two glasses of apple juice from the tray, placing one near each of the boys on the desk.

"Eat." Ronon held the plate of sandwiches in front of John, who daintily chose one, then leaned back against Ronon to eat it contentedly.

He looked tiny against Ronon's bulk, and oddly as though he were exactly where he belonged.

Beckett ushered Elizabeth into the chair behind his desk, then pulled up another for himself.

"So, lads, you remember Teyla and Ronon, then?"

"Uh-huh," Rodney said indistinctly through a mouthful of sandwich. "'course."

"Of course, yes." Beckett glanced at Elizabeth, looking as lost as she felt, and she shrugged back at him. Beckett turned back to the boys. "And why would that be, then, I wonder?"

Rodney paused in his chewing to stare up at Beckett, his high, smooth forehead wrinkling. He turned his head and looked at John, who shared his puzzled expression. After a silent but apparently speaking exchange of looks--in which the topic appeared to be the idiocy of certain adults in the room--Rodney and John both peered back up at them.

"Because they're Teyla and Ronon," John said helpfully, and reached for his glass of juice. When he couldn't quite snag it, Ronon lifted it for him. John held it in both hands and drank with noisy enjoyment.

"I see." Elizabeth tried to tamp down an odd and completely inappropriate surge of hurt. She'd known both of them, and Rodney in particular, longer than either Teyla or Ronon had, yet she was apparently not in their memories at all. "But you don't remember me or Dr. Beckett or--"

"Nuh-uh." Rodney swallowed the last of his sandwich loudly and reached for his own glass. "We already told you that."

"Yes, you did." She managed a smile, reminding herself they were as young mentally as their tiny forms suggested. "Is there anyone else you remember?"

That prompted another exchange of looks between the boys, but then they both shrugged.

Beckett frowned. "Did you remember Teyla and Ronon before you saw them?"

Neither of them answered for a long moment, pausing with concentrated looks on their faces.

Finally, John said, "I dunno. Maybe? I didn't think about them until I saw them."

Rodney nodded in vigorous agreement, then handed his glass to Teyla to return to the desk. He twisted to look up at her with a hopeful stare.

"Can we go play now?"

:::::::

Beckett had wanted to do proper tests and Teyla attempted to negotiate a compromise, but it was Ronon who'd made the decision by simply standing up, putting John down, plucking Rodney from Teyla's lap, and heading for the door with one of them hanging off each of his hands.

"Play now. Tests later." Ronon's gruff voice drifted back to them as the trio left, two tiny sets of legs trotting at full speed to keep up with Ronon's shortened strides, John doing little extra skips in a private dance of happy and Rodney chattering up at Ronon in a bright, high voice.

By the time Ronon returned them to the med lab, both the boys were wind-blown, rosy-cheeked, and content enough to suffer Beckett's scans as long as Ronon and Teyla stayed with them. With Teyla's coaxing, Rodney even eventually allowed Beckett to draw blood without igniting John into attempted bodily harm on the doctor--though Elizabeth hid a smile as Beckett took the precaution of removing John's boots before beginning the exams, managing to get them untied and pulled off while the boys were grinning at each other around lollipops.


End file.
